Temptations and Four Tops to Hit Broadway

The Motown superstar groups will play a special one-week double-bill engagement at the Palace Theatre in Times Square this holiday season

Broadway has been grooving to the Detroit sound since Motown the Musical opened in spring 2013.

But before that show wraps its initial run on Jan. 18, it will get a little competition at the box office from two legendary Motor City acts when The Temptations and The Four Tops play a joint one-week engagement over the holidays.

The vocal groups behind such hits as "Papa Was a Rolling Stone," "My Girl," "Baby I Need Your Lovin'," "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," "It's the Same Old Song," "Get Ready" and "Reach Out I'll Be There" will team up on a double bill for seven performances at the Palace Theatre in Times Square, Dec. 29 to Jan. 4.

The show is billed as both a career retrospective and a celebration of hits that defined a generation. The limited engagement is presented by Robert Ahrens, Eva Price, Manny Kladitis and Live Nation Entertainment.

Broadway theaters have housed concert stints from various artists with great commercial success in the past decade or so, among them Duran Duran, Barry Manilow and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

The holiday-season booking of the Temptations and Four Tops show gives the Nederlander Organization a tenant at one of its largest venues for what is traditionally the highest-earning week of the year at the Broadway box office.

The Palace has been empty since the swift closing early this summer of the poorly received Tupac Shakur musical, Holler If Ya Hear Me. The theater's next open-ended run will be the new musical version of An American in Paris, which starts previews March 13 for an April 12 opening.